Oliver Twist — Chapter 17

CHAPTER XVII.

OLIVER’S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION

It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderous melodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes, in as regular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon.

The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song.

We behold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron: her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other; and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle; where a grey-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of all sorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about in company, carolling perpetually.

Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight.

The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death-beds, and from mourning-weeds to holiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vast difference.

The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling, which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous.

As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time and place, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship: an author’s skill in his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter: this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary.

If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver Twist was born; the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition.

Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse-gate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, up the High Street.

He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood; his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun; he clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power.

Mr. Bumble always carried his head high;

but this morning it was higher than usual.

There was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle’s mind, too great for utterance.

Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passed along.

He merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant paupers with parochial care.

“Drat that beadle!

” said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden-gate.

“If it isn’t him at this time in the morning!

Lauk, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you!

Well, dear me, it _is_ a pleasure, this is!

Come into the parlour, sir, please.

” The first sentence was addressed to Susan; and the exclamations of delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble: as the good lady unlocked the garden-gate: and showed him, with great attention and respect, into the house.

“Mrs. Mann,” said Mr. Bumble; not sitting upon, or dropping himself into a seat, as any common jackanapes would: but letting himself gradually and slowly down into a chair; “Mrs. Mann, ma’am, good morning.

” “Well, and good morning to _you_, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann, with many smiles; “and hoping you find yourself well, sir!

” “So-so, Mrs. Mann,” replied the beadle.

“A porochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann.

” “Ah, that it isn’t indeed, Mr. Bumble,” rejoined the lady.

And all the infant paupers might have chorussed the rejoinder with great propriety, if they had heard it.

“A porochial life, ma’am,” continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, “is a life of worrit, and vexation, and hardihood; but all public characters, as I may say, must suffer prosecution.

” Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beadle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy, and sighed.

“Ah!

You may well sigh, Mrs. Mann!

” said the beadle.

Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again: evidently to the satisfaction of the public character: who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, “Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.

” “Lauk, Mr. Bumble!

” cried Mrs. Mann, starting back.

“To London, ma’am,” resumed the inflexible beadle, “by coach.

I and two paupers, Mrs. Mann!

A legal action is a coming on, about a settlement;

and the board has appointed me—me, Mrs. Mann—to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clerkinwell.

And I very much question,” added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, “whether the Clerkinwell Sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me.

” “Oh!

you mustn’t be too hard upon them, sir,” said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly.

“The Clerkinwell Sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma’am,” replied Mr. Bumble; “and if the Clerkinwell Sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clerkinwell Sessions have only themselves to thank.

” There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these words, that Mrs. Mann appeared quite awed by them.

At length she said, “You’re going by coach, sir?

I thought it was always usual to send them paupers in carts.

” “That’s when they’re ill, Mrs. Mann,” said the beadle.

“We put the sick paupers into open carts in the rainy weather, to prevent their taking cold.

” “Oh!

” said Mrs. Mann.

“The opposition coach contracts for these two; and takes them cheap,” said Mr. Bumble.

“They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two pound cheaper to move ’em than to bury ’em—that is, if we can throw ’em upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do, if they don’t die upon the road to spite us.

Ha!

ha!

ha!

” When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat; and he became grave.

“We are forgetting business, ma’am,” said the beadle; “here is your porochial stipend for the month.

” Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper, from his pocket-book; and requested a receipt: which Mrs. Mann wrote.

“It’s very much blotted, sir,” said the farmer of infants; “but it’s formal enough, I dare say.

Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir, I am very much obliged to you, I’m sure.

” Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann’s curtsey;

and inquired how the children were.

“Bless their dear little hearts!

” said Mrs. Mann with emotion, “they’re as well as can be, the dears!

Of course, except the two that died last week.

And little Dick.

” “Isn’t that boy no better?

” inquired Mr. Bumble.

Mrs. Mann shook her head.

“He’s a ill-conditioned, wicious, bad-disposed porochial child that,” said Mr. Bumble angrily.

“Where is he?

” “I’ll bring him to you in one minute, sir,” replied Mrs. Mann.

“Here, you Dick!

” After some calling, Dick was discovered.

Having had his face put under the pump, and dried upon Mrs. Mann’s gown, he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble, the beadle.

The child was pale and thin; his cheeks were sunken; and his eyes large and bright.

The scanty parish dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body; and his young limbs had wasted away, like those of an old man.

Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble’s glance; not daring to lift his eyes from the floor; and dreading even to hear the beadle’s voice.

“Can’t you look at the gentleman, you obstinate boy?

” said Mrs. Mann.

The child meekly raised his eyes, and encountered those of Mr. Bumble.

“What’s the matter with you, porochial Dick?

” inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity.

“Nothing, sir,” replied the child faintly.

“I should think not,” said Mrs. Mann, who had of course laughed very much at Mr. Bumble’s humour.

“You want for nothing, I’m sure.

” “I should like—” faltered the child.

“Hey-day!

” interposed Mrs. Mann, “I suppose you’re going to say that you _do_ want for something, now?

Why, you little wretch—” “Stop, Mrs. Mann, stop!

” said the beadle, raising his hand with a show of authority.

“Like what, sir, eh?

” “I should like,” faltered the child, “if somebody that can write, would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and keep it for me, after I am laid in the ground.

” “Why, what does the boy mean?

” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression: accustomed as he was to such things.

“What do you mean, sir?

” “I should like,” said the child, “to leave my dear love to poor Oliver Twist; and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him.

And I should like to tell him,” said the child pressing his small hands together, and speaking with great fervour, “that I was glad to die when I was very young; for, perhaps, if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in Heaven, might forget me, or be unlike me; and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.

” Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment; and, turning to his companion, said, “They’re all in one story, Mrs. Mann.

That out-dacious Oliver had demogalized them all!

” “I couldn’t have believed it, sir” said Mrs Mann, holding up her hands, and looking malignantly at Dick.

“I never see such a hardened little wretch!

” “Take him away, ma’am!

” said Mr. Bumble imperiously.

“This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann.

” “I hope the gentleman will understand that it isn’t my fault, sir?

” said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically.

“They shall understand that, ma’am; they shall be acquainted with the true state of the case,” said Mr. Bumble.

“There; take him away, I can’t bear the sight on him.

” Dick was immediately taken away, and locked up in the coal-cellar.

Mr. Bumble shortly afterwards took himself off, to prepare for his journey.

At six o’clock next morning, Mr. Bumble: having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his person in a blue great-coat with a cape to it: took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed; with whom, in due course of time, he arrived in London.

He experienced no other crosses on the way, than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two paupers, who persisted in shivering, and complaining of the cold, in a manner which, Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable; although he had a great-coat on.

Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped; and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter.

Putting a glass of hot gin-and-water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire; and, with sundry moral reflections on the too-prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper.

The very first paragraph upon which Mr. Bumble’s eye rested, was the following advertisement.

“FIVE GUINEAS REWARD “Whereas a young boy, named Oliver Twist, absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home, at Pentonville; and has not since been heard of.

The above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested.

” And then followed a full description of Oliver’s dress, person, appearance, and disappearance: with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length.

Mr. Bumble opened his eyes; read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times; and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville: having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin-and-water, untasted.

“Is Mr. Brownlow at home?

” inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened the door.

To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon, but rather evasive reply of “I don’t know; where do you come from?

” Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver’s name, in explanation of his errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlour door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state.

“Come in, come in,” said the old lady: “I knew we should hear of him.

Poor dear!

I knew we should!

I was certain of it.

Bless his heart!

I

said so all along.

” Having said this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlour again; and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears.

The girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs meanwhile; and now returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her immediately: which he did.

He was shown into the little back study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them.

The latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation: “A beadle.

A parish beadle, or I’ll eat my head.

” “Pray don’t interrupt just now,” said Mr. Brownlow.

“Take a seat, will you?

” Mr. Bumble sat himself down; quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. Grimwig’s manner.

Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp, so as to obtain an uninterrupted view of the beadle’s countenance; and said, with a little impatience, “Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement?

” “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bumble.

“And you _are_ a beadle, are you not?

” inquired Mr. Grimwig.

“I am a porochial beadle, gentlemen,” rejoined Mr. Bumble proudly.

“Of course,” observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend, “I knew he was.

A beadle all over!

” Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed: “Do you know where this poor boy is now?

” “No more than nobody,” replied Mr. Bumble.

“Well, what _do_ you know of him?

” inquired the old gentleman.

“Speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say.

What _do_ you know of him?

” “You don’t happen to know any good of him, do you?

” said Mr. Grimwig, caustically; after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble’s features.

Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentous solemnity.

“You see?

” said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly at Mr. Brownlow.

Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble’s pursed-up countenance; and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding Oliver, in as few words as possible.

Mr. Bumble put down his hat; unbuttoned his coat; folded his arms;

inclined his head in a retrospective manner; and, after a few moments’ reflection, commenced his story.

It would be tedious if given in the beadle’s words: occupying, as it did, some twenty minutes in the telling; but the sum and substance of it was, that Oliver was a foundling, born of low and vicious parents.

That he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery, ingratitude, and malice.

That he had terminated his brief career in the place of his birth, by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad, and running away in the night-time from his master’s house.

In proof of his really being the person he represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town.

Folding his arms again, he then awaited Mr. Brownlow’s observations.

“I fear it is all too true,” said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers.

“This is not much for your intelligence; but I would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favourable to the boy.

” It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview, he might have imparted a very different colouring to his little history.

It was too late to do it now, however; so he shook his head gravely, and, pocketing the five guineas, withdrew.

Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes; evidently so much disturbed by the beadle’s tale, that even Mr. Grimwig forbore to vex him further.

At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently.

“Mrs. Bedwin,” said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; “that boy, Oliver, is an imposter.

” “It can’t be, sir.

It cannot be,” said the old lady energetically.

“I tell you he is,” retorted the old gentleman.

“What do you mean by can’t be?

We have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life.

” “I never will believe it, sir,” replied the old lady, firmly.

“Never!

” “You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books,” growled Mr. Grimwig.

“I knew it all along.

Why didn’t you take my advice in the beginning; you would if he hadn’t had a fever, I suppose, eh?

He was interesting, wasn’t he?

Interesting!

Bah!

” And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish.

“He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,” retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly.

“I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can’t say the same, shouldn’t say anything about them.

That’s my opinion!

” This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor.

As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow.

“Silence!

” said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling.

“Never let me hear the boy’s name again.

I rang to tell you that.

Never.

Never, on any pretence, mind!

You may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin.

Remember!

I am in earnest.

” There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow’s that night.

Oliver’s heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright.

CHAPTER XVIII.

HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE FRIENDS

About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude; of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery.

Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning.

Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown: which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends.

Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging; and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation.

Little Oliver’s blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew’s words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them.

That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind.

As he glanced timidly up, and met the Jew’s searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman.

The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said, that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet.

Then, taking his hat, and covering himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the room-door behind him.

And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts.

Which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed.

After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked;

and he was at liberty to wander about the house.

It was a very dirty place.

The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways.

From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and dreary as it looked now.

Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings;

and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes.

With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys returned.

In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows.

There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter;

and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends.

Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again;

and as the window of Oliver’s observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard,—which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

One afternoon, the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do him justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him); and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in his toilet, straightway.

Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful; too happy to have some faces, however bad, to look upon; too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so; to throw any objection in the way of this proposal.

So he at once expressed his readiness; and, kneeling on the floor, while the Dodger sat upon the table so that he could take his foot in his laps, he applied himself to a process which Mr. Dawkins designated as “japanning his trotter-cases.

” The phrase, rendered into plain English, signifieth, cleaning his boots.

Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature.

He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sigh, said, half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates: “What a pity it is he isn’t a prig!

” “Ah!

” said Master Charles Bates; “he don’t know what’s good for him.

” The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe: as did Charley Bates.

They both smoked, for some seconds, in silence.

“I suppose you don’t even know what a prig is?

” said the Dodger mournfully.

“I think I know that,” replied Oliver, looking up.

“It’s a the—; you’re one, are you not?

” inquired Oliver, checking himself.

“I am,” replied the Dodger.

“I’d scorn to be anything else.

” Mr. Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock, after delivering this sentiment, and looked at Master Bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary.

“I am,” repeated the Dodger.

“So’s Charley.

So’s Fagin.

So’s Sikes.

So’s Nancy.

So’s Bet.

So we all are, down to the dog.

And he’s the downiest one of the lot!

” “And the least given to peaching,” added Charley Bates.

“He wouldn’t so much as bark in a witness-box, for fear of committing himself; no, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without wittles for a fortnight,” said the Dodger.

“Not a bit of it,” observed Charley.

“He’s a rum dog.

Don’t he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he’s in company!

” pursued the Dodger.

“Won’t he growl at all, when he hears a fiddle playing!

And don’t he hate other dogs as ain’t of his breed!

Oh, no!

” “He’s an out-and-out Christian,” said Charley.

This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal’s abilities, but it was an appropriate remark in another sense, if Master Bates had only known it; for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen, claiming to be out-and-out Christians, between whom, and Mr. Sikes’ dog, there exist strong and singular points of resemblance.

“Well, well,” said the Dodger, recurring to the point from which they had strayed: with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings.

“This hasn’t got anything to do with young Green here.

” “No more it has,” said Charley.

“Why don’t you put yourself under Fagin, Oliver?

” “And make your fortun’ out of hand?

” added the Dodger, with a grin.

“And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel: as I mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week,” said Charley Bates.

“I don’t like it,” rejoined Oliver, timidly; “I wish they would let me go.

I—I—would rather go.

” “And Fagin would _rather_ not!

” rejoined Charley.

Oliver knew this too well; but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning.

“Go!

” exclaimed the Dodger.

“Why, where’s your spirit?

Don’t you take any pride out of yourself?

Would you go and be dependent on your friends?

” “Oh, blow that!

” said Master Bates: drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard, “that’s too mean; that is.

” “_I_ couldn’t do it,” said the Dodger, with an air of haughty disgust.

“You can leave your friends, though,” said Oliver with a half smile;

“and let them be punished for what you did.

” “That,” rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, “That was all out of consideration for Fagin, ’cause the traps know that we work together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn’t made our lucky; that was the move, wasn’t it, Charley?

” Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection of Oliver’s flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and down into his throat: and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping, about five minutes long.

“Look here!

” said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence.

“Here’s a jolly life!

What’s the odds where it comes from?

Here, catch hold; there’s plenty more where they were took from.

You won’t, won’t you?

Oh, you precious flat!

” “It’s naughty, ain’t it, Oliver?